The Japanese Garden

The temple grounds are entered through the "Mountain Gate" - also referred to as the "Triple-Gate". Donated by Jusha Tsumura in 1995, it is dedicated to the Buddha as Doctor-King. From the gate, the path through the garden first passes a Purification Basin. The garden is of the "Pure Land" type, and so itself a ritual place. Here it has been designed as a dry garden: waterfall, the course of the stream, pool and stream banks are all shown just with stones: "dry." Nevertheless, for special occasions it is also possible to flood the "water"-area.

Opposite the Mountain Gate, on the other side of the garden, on a boulder under a pavilion, stands a statue of Prince Shōtoku (Shōtoku Taishi, 574-622), donated to the EKŌ-House in 2002 by the prominent contemporary sculpter Wakei Nagaoka. It was in the reign of Shōtoku that Buddhism came to Japan, and he made major contributions to its becoming widespread there.

One hour before major celebrations, the heavy bronze bell in the bell-tower is struck, in all ten times, at intervals of one minute. On the last day of the year the Joya-no-kane is performed: the bell is struck 108 times, also at one minute intervals, to drive away and scatter the 108 fundamental sufferings of humanity.

On the west side of the temple is a site of remembrance for the dead, buried there according to Shin-Buddhist ritual. The inscription in Chinese characters reads, in the Japanese pronunciation, "Kue issho": "All gather together at a single place."

The outstanding construction in the building complex is the temple. The ground floor of its main hall is built after the Jōdo-shin Temple in Utsunomiya (north of Tōkyō).